A restriction on technological restrictions

on: 2015-05-06

The right to install other software on your computing devices

Safecast is a global project to map radiation data from around the
world and release this information openly. When the project just started
out, they used modified hardware, together with their own custom software
and a few clever tweaks, to allow anyone to participate in the project.
This kind of ingenuity, the ability to re-purpose or adapt existing
technology by replacing or supplementing its software, should be
permitted and encouraged by the law. In the example of Safecast,
fortunately nobody prevented them from being innovative.

But all of us depend on the possibility to install or replace programs
that we use every day, to increase our security, privacy or convenience
-- or just because we happen to like using a different program on our
laptop, tablet, phone, router, television, car, or on other devices.

Today, on the International Day Against DRM, the undersigned
organisations are calling on lawmakers to safeguard the right to tinker
for everyone. To make sure that the owner of every device is allowed to
replace or supplement the software in that device if they so choose,
thereby empowering owners to control their own property. Many
manufacturers today add technological restrictions that prevent device
owners from changing their devices, or having someone do so for them.
This can be in breach of the licences on the devices (as with Free
Software/Open Source Software licences, which grant the rights to use,
study, share, and improve the software for any purpose). It is clear that
any right to tinker must also be coupled with a legal provision that
prevents technological restrictions of the same right.

To successfully guarantee that device owners are in control of their
own technology, the following organisations ask that the right to tinker
be guaranteed for everyone, and that technological restrictions that
interfere with this right be limited by law.

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About FSFE

Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to
control technology.

Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives. It is important
that this technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software
gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software.
These rights help support other fundamental rights like freedom of
speech, freedom of press and privacy.